PhD Seminar • Human-Computer Interaction • Supporting Active Reading of Scientific Documents

Please note: This PhD seminar will take place in DC 1304 and online.

Damien Masson, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Supervisors: Professors Daniel Vogel, Géry Casiez, Sylvain Malacria

Active reading, a strategy that involves interacting with a document through annotations and dynamic content, helps readers understand and memorize information. However, scientific documents traditionally make active reading impossible because they are published through outdated workflows and using static digital formats. In this seminar, I present two projects aiming to restore and supercharge active reading in scientific documents.

The first project aims to help readers make sense of data in text. To do so, we introduce the concept of Charagraphs: dynamically generated interactive charts and annotations for in-situ visualization, comparison, and manipulation of numeric data included within text.

The second project aims to support interactive content in scientific documents. To do so, we present Chameleon, a system-wide tool that combines computer vision algorithms used for image identification with an open database format to allow for the layering of dynamic content.

To attend this PhD seminar in person, please go to DC 1304. You can also attend virtually on Zoom at https://uwaterloo.zoom.us/j/99851823142.